rosierugosa:

beranyth-inactive:

Those perceptions that functioning in purity culture as an asexual girl is somehow easier are all complete nonsense.  

Sure, you may not have to bury yourself in shame for every sexual thought, but you’re still taught to see yourself as a commodity that you have no choice in giving away.  It might alleviate some of the pressure in the moment–give you an external excuse to avoid having sex right now–but it’s all about “saving it for your future husband.”  It’s training young girls to hinge their choices and their bodily autonomy off of a man they haven’t even met yet.  Everything comes back to the Imaginary Future Husband and his rights over you.  We were literally told how we’d be betraying him by kissing someone else, or having sexual thoughts about anyone but him.  You think there was any exception for those of us betraying him by not having interest in him at all?

Don’t want that husband?  Don’t want to have sex on your wedding night?  Too bad, that’s what you’re here for.  Bonus points on the relgious spin on the “soulmate” idea, where if you feel like this you’re resisting the Perfect Man god already has picked out for you–how dare you refuse his gift!  How ungrateful!

Purity culture is never about girls not ever having sex; it’s about men’s obsession with the idea of having a girl who has no sexual experiences but them.  It’s about putting control of women’s sexuality in the hands of men they haven’t even met yet.  It’s about keeping food unspoiled so you can eat it later.

A woman who always remains disinterested in sex isn’t seen as “keeping herself pure” forever–she’s seen as a piece of meat at the grocery store that no one buys and it just goes rotten and gets wasted.

I’d argue sexual purity as a concept is doubly dangerous to asexual girls.

The thing about sexual purity is that it doesn’t acknowledge asexuality as a possibility. The thing about sexual purity is that it almost always goes hand-in-hand with ‘homosexuality is an abomination’, ‘sex is exclusively for making babies’ (or failing that, only acceptable within marriage), ‘women are not meant to desire sex’ and ‘wives are supposed to satisfy their husbands wants and needs’.

Asexual women face the usual threat of rape/retaliation for saying ‘‘no’‘ to men. Whether or not she’s waiting for marriage doesn’t enter into it.

But in addition to that, an asexual woman who doesn’t know she’s asexual, but DOES ‘know’ that sex is something you endure out of love or respect for her husband, is not going to see anything wrong with not wanting to have or enjoy sex with her husband.

Compulsory heterosexuality doesn’t just harm gay men and lesbians by forcing them to hide or repress themselves for fear of violence. It also harms them, and asexuals, by denying that you can *be* anything other than straight.

*LOTS* of people who aren’t straight have entered into a heterosexual marriage. These days some people feel safe enough to consider The Closet to be dishonesty or cowardice rather than the survival strategy it is. But there have been and continue to be plenty of queer people who are well into adulthood before they realize they AREN’T cisgender or straight.

I have friends who didn’t consider, couldn’t consider, questioning or exploring their gender until their mid-twenties. And I’ve met multiple lesbians, 40-60 who were married and had multiple kids prior to divorce.

As for myself, an asexual woman in a conservative part of the country: if I had been born in one of the dozens of isolated little towns, or if my family had been devoutly rather than casually religious, there is a 90% chance I would have unquestioningly married my first and only boyfriend, endured sex, have multiple children, and felt guilty and dissatisfied the whole time because SURPRISE! I’M NOT ACTUALLY STRAIGHT! I thought I was resisting temptation and my ‘‘‘reward’‘ for staying ‘‘pure’‘ was a marriage I didn’t know I could opt out of.